Section 192.031 of the Texas election code says that political parties must certify their presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the November ballot no later than 70 days before the general election. It says, “A political party is entitled to have the names of its nominees for president and vice-president placed on the ballot if before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential election day, the party’s state chair signs and delivers to the secretary of state a written certification of the name’s of the party’s nominees for president and vice-president.”

This year, that deadline is August 26. UPDATE: At 2:30 pm Texas time, August 27, Kim Kizer of the Texas Secretary of State’s elections division says neither major party’s certification has been received in the Elections Division. The Executive Office of the Secretary of State refers all questions back to the Elections Division.

This year, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party obeyed this law. See this link to the Secretary of State’s web page showing a blank for the Republicans and Democrats for president. It does show Bob Barr on the ballot; scroll down a little bit. If the Republicans have indeed filed, one wonders who they listed for vice-president, and why their filing is missing from the state web page.

That deadline had always been 60 days before the general election, until 2005, when for some reason the Texas legislature amended it to 70 days.

The major parties take these statutory deadlines seriously. Both major parties worked together in the period 1953-1955 to move these deadlines to accomodate late national conventions in 1956. Both major party conventions were in August in 1956. In all prior presidential elections, both major party national conventions had always been in July at the latest. Throughout U.S. history, most of them have been in June.

Then, in 1998 and 1999, the Republican National Committee worked with state legislators to move these deadlines even closer to the election, in preparation for the 2000 Republican national convention, which was the latest in U.S. history for a major party, ending on September 1. And when the Republican National Committee chose the 2008 dates (September 1-4), again, state legislatures were asked to move the deadlines, and all the states did so, to accomodate the late Republican convention. It is very peculiar that the Texas legislature moved the deadline to an earlier date in 2005. Thanks to Art DiBianca for this news.

In 1988, the Democratic and Republican Parties missed a similar Indiana deadline. Lenora Fulani sued the State Election Board to force the Board to enforce the deadline. The 7th circuit ruled that Fulani did have standing to file such a lawsuit. Fulani v Hogsett, 917 F 2d 1028 (1990). However, the 7th circuit also said that Fulani waited too long to file her lawsuit. The implication is that if she had filed the lawsuit promptly, it would have been successful; or, more likely, the Indiana deadline for the major parties to certify their nominees might have been held unconstitutional. Fulani in 1988 was the only ballot-listed presidential candidate other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. This year, the Texas Libertarian Party and Bob Barr are the only ballot-listed presidential candidates on the Texas ballot, so the Texas Libertarian Party could, if it wished, bring a lawsuit. However, the result of the lawsuit would probably be to get the deadline declared unconstitutional; no court would order that Obama and McCain be kept off the ballot.

iT WOULD BE A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO GET PUBLICITY, GT THE DEADLINE TO BE DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND SEND A MESSAGE TO PLAY BY THE RULES. THIS WOULD ENCOURAGE AND OPEN UP OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FUTURE FOR THIRD PARTIES IN TEXAS

This is kind of funny, actually. If the Ds and Rs filed on time, they’ll have to use substitution to get Obama and McCain on the ballot, while complaining about the very same thing in PA?

If the TX SoS did their job right according to the law, they would strictly enforce the law and keep Obama and McCain off the ballot, and that would throw the entire election into utter chaos and expose the party corruptions. Of course, that won’t happen, and the SoS will cave to the major party partisan politial pressures and list them both. If I were the LPTX, I’d sue to keep them off and require the law be strictly enforced, not get it declared unconstitutional.

The August 26 deadline is for independent and third party candidates. Texas Election Code – Section 192.031

Since the Dâ€™s and the Râ€™s have statewide organizations, nominate by convention, and have each had â€œa nominee for a statewide office who received a number of votes equal to at least five percent of the total number of votes received by all candidates for that office,â€ Texas Election Code Section 181.005 applies.

Donâ€™t worry. John McCain and Barry Obama will both be on the ballot, and the state of Texas wonâ€™t have to break any rules to make it happen.

Â§ 192.031. PARTY CANDIDATE’S ENTITLEMENT TO PLACE ON
BALLOT. A political party is entitled to have the names of its
nominees for president and vice-president of the United States
placed on the ballot in a presidential general election if:
(1) the nominees possess the qualifications for those
offices prescribed by federal law;
(2) before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential
election day, the party’s state chair signs and delivers to the
secretary of state a written certification of:
(A) the names of the party’s nominees for
president and vice-president; and
(B) the names and residence addresses of
presidential elector candidates nominated by the party, in a number
equal to the number of presidential electors that federal law
allocates to this state; and
(3) the party is:
(A) required or authorized by Subchapter A of
Chapter 172 to make its nominations by primary election; or
(B) entitled to have the names of its nominees
placed on the general election ballot under Chapter 181.

Â§ 192.062. PRESIDENTIAL OR VICE-PRESIDENTIAL PARTY
NOMINEE. (a) The secretary of state shall certify in writing for
placement on the ballot the name of a political party’s replacement
nominee for president or vice-president of the United States if:
(1) the original nominee withdraws, dies, or is
declared ineligible on or before the 74th day before presidential
election day; and
(2) the party’s state chair delivers certification of
the replacement nominee’s name, signed by the state chair, to the
secretary of state not later than 5 p.m. of the 70th day before
presidential election day.
(b) If the state chair’s certification of a replacement
nominee is delivered by mail, it is considered to be delivered at
the time of its receipt by the secretary of state.
(c) The name of a nominee who has withdrawn, died, or been
declared ineligible shall be omitted from the ballot and the name of
the replacement nominee placed on the ballot if a replacement
nominee is certified for placement on the ballot as provided by this
section. Otherwise, the withdrawn, deceased, or ineligible
nominee’s name shall be placed on the ballot.
(d) A vote for a withdrawn, deceased, or ineligible nominee
whose name appears on the ballot shall be counted as a vote for the
nominating political party’s presidential elector candidates.

The section of Texas election code below states that a political party may have it’s candidates placed on the ballot if that party had a candidate that received at least 5% of the vote in a previous statewide election.

Meaning that the Democratic & Republican candidates will be allowed on the ballot , even if they miss the deadline. Read the code over carefully and you’ll see that is what it states.

Â§ 181.005. QUALIFYING FOR PLACEMENT ON BALLOT BY PARTY
REQUIRED TO NOMINATE BY CONVENTION. (a) To be entitled to have
the names of its nominees placed on the general election ballot, a
political party required to make nominations by convention must
file with the secretary of state, not later than the 75th day after
the date of the precinct conventions held under this chapter, lists
of precinct convention participants indicating that the number of
participants equals at least one percent of the total number of
votes received by all candidates for governor in the most recent
gubernatorial general election. The lists must include each
participant’s residence address and voter registration number.
(b) A political party is entitled to have the names of its
nominees placed on the ballot, without qualifyingunder Subsection
(a), in each subsequent general election following a general
election in which the party had a nominee for a statewide office who
received a number of votes equal to at least five percent of the
total number of votes received by all candidates for that office.

I looked at section 181 it seems to set ourt regulations for how statewide and county candidates may be nominated by convention. It requires that the conventions follow rules included as part of that chapter. I don’t see where it has set up any rules for a national convention as is required for presidential candidates. The next chapter chapeter 11 is specifically about Presidential Elections. I am not a lawyer but I don’t believe that the rules of 181 have any bearing.

The opportunities, fight to keep Mccain and Obama off of Texas unless.. they let him into the debates and drop the PA lawsuit and Join to let him on in Oklahoma, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine and allow his name to be substituted in MA.

Martin: Â§ 181.005(b) may entitle a party that doesn’t meet Â§ 181.005(a) to placement of their candidates on the ballot, but that doesn’t excuse them from following the deadlines set out in Chapter 192.

The Republican National Committee spent a great deal of energy during 2003 and 2004, persuasing certain states with fairly early certification deadlines to ease those deadlines. RNC attorney Caroline Hunter was in charge of this work. Sometimes the states would have Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and they would tease the Republicans by threatening not to pass those bills. Examples were Illinois and Alabama. This lobbying was necessary because even the 2004 Republican national convention was the latest in U.S. history, and ended on Sep. 1. In the end, all states fixed their deadlines to accomodate the Republican national late convention. Then the RNC had to do it all over again in 2007 because the RNC had chosen even later dates for the 2008 convention, ending Sep. 4. Why did the RNC do all this hard work, lobbying state legislatures, if these deadlines don’t mean anything?

SOLUTION:
We need a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit presidential candidates names from appearing on the ballot. Only the names of state party nominated presidential electors should be on the ballot (plus of course independents who chose to petition for ballot access as a presidential elector). The state parties hold thier conventions early, the national parties could have their’s as late as they wanted.

Each congressional district would list three presidential electors (one for congressman, two for senators) per presidential candidate. Thus, at most, a ballot would contain perhaps eighteen names (3 each for Republican’s, Democrat’s, Green’s, Constitutionalist’s, Libertarian’s, Independent’s)… Plus three slots for write-ins. Plus three more slots for “none of the above”.

THEN, it would be these presidential electors who would go around their district campaigning for votes. Less money would go to the national candidates and more to these local presidential elector races. More local debates and media coverage too.

The reason for the 2005 change (HB 2339) in the deadlines was to increase the time period for overseas absentee ballots, which are now required to be mailed out 45 days before the election.

The deadline for the Secretary of State to send the list of certified candidates to the county election officials was changed from 55 days to 62 days before the election. This gives county election officials about two weeks to prepare ballots before mailing them out.

The deadline for filing of presidential candidates was changed to 70 days, and the deadline for write-in candidates was changed to 67 days. This gives the Secretary of State a week to prepare the certified list of candidates to send to the county election officials.

I hate to point this out but this will get no attention in the media. Obama and McCain will get on the ballot no matter what the law says. This isn’t the first time some thing like this has happened. The law isn’t for our masters, it’s for us.

Texas classifies political parties by the percentage of the vote their candidate received in the previous gubernatorial election. This determines the method by which they nominate candidates state, district, county, and precinct officials. Nomination of presidential/vice presidential candidates is a separate process.

(a) Greater than 20%. Party must nominate by party primary. Currently the Republican and Democratic parties are so classified.
(b) Between 2% and 20%. Party may nominate by party primary, or by convention.
(c) Less than 2%, or newly qualified parties. Party must nominate by convention. Currently the Libertarian party is so classified.

Party conventions are a cascading set of conventions beginning at the election precinct level, followed by county, district, and state conventions. The election precinct conventions are held contemporaneously with the primaries, and voters can choose to either vote in the primary or to attend a precinct convention.

So basically the convention system is a system of indirect nomination, while the primaries directly nominate.

Parties that hold primaries are also required to hold conventions, but they are not of the nominating process for state, district, county, or precinct officials. However, the parties do (voluntarily) use the conventions as part of the process of choosing delegates to their national party conventions.

Parties that are required to nominate by primary are required to hold a presidential preference primary if they want to place their presidential/vice presidential candidate on the ballot. The preference primary is used to allocate some of the delegates to the national party convention (the allocation is determined by party rules).

Â§ 192.031 sets out the process for placing party candidates for president/vice president on the general election ballot. The three requirements are:

(1) The candidates must qualify according to federal law (US Constitution).
(2) The party must file 70 days before the election.
(3a) The party is required or authorized to make its nominations by primary.
(3b) The party is permitted to make its nominations by convention.

(3a) and (3b) cover all classes of parties entitled to place their candidates on the state ballot. It is a bit confusing in that it refers to the process by which they nominate candidates for state office (Governor, Senator, etc.), rather than the process by which they choose their presidential nominees – which Texas leaves up to the state parties.

If I were the LP I would start a lawsuit and hold a press conference that would tell the D’s and R’s that if they wanted us to drop the lawsuit then all they have to do is allow the LP into the televised presidential debates. They would refuse of course but it would allow us to get some free publicity and make our situation know to more of the American people.

I see a lot of Blogs have picked this up. The LP HQ has sent out a press release. But this has yet to hit the major media. This will remain a fringe story, unless it cracks into at least one major media source.

Here, finally, I see something good about the Barr campaign, and I hope Barr lives up to it.

In 2004 Bush failed to file on time in two states that he eventually won. Had he been disqualified as he should have been according to law, he would not be the president today.

Nobody, neither the Democrats who stood to benefit, nor the Libertarians just for the hell of it, nor the Greens seeking to mitigate the alleged damage of splitting the left vote, challenged in court the placement of Bush on the ballot. I think Badnarak was just too nice a guy.

Barr can rise up to the occasion and finally win my undivided support. Until now I’ve been trying to build even tepid support, but he can have my whole hearted support. He’s been using lawsuits to force the ballot issue – he must file one in Texas if Obama and McCain are placed on the ballot. The case is on whether or not Texas should follow Texas law.

For those offering the Chapter 181 as the savior argument for this fiasco (which is incorrect, but lets play along) …

The Republicans would have a difficult time demonstrating they had 43,992 (at least one percent of the total number of votes received by all candidates for governor in the most recent gubernatorial general election) people participate in their precinct conventions… For Tarrant County (Fort Worth) to have done its part, it would have had to of had 3,263 participate…it had less than 2,100. oops.

Speaking as a partisan liberal Democrat living in Texas, it would be one of the greatest moments in my life to see Texas’ electoral votes go to Bob Barr instead of McCain– but there’s no way it would happen. John McCain will win the state whether his name is on the ballot or not– there are more Republicans who will write in votes than Libertarians who will select their party’s nominee.

Very curious. If substitutions cannot be made after the deadline, and she was chosen after the deadline, how is this possible? Is the Secretary of State psychic? Will he help me pick the winning lottery numbers?

Just clearing up one thing, if the Texas Legislature passes a special law to clear this up for this year, it would NOT be an “ex post facto” law. An “ex post facto” law is a statute that attempts to criminalize behavior that, at the time the behavior was performed, was not criminal; or, a statute that attempts to increase the penalty for behavior that was criminal at the time it was performed, but subject only to the lesser penalty. If the Texas Legislature changed the law to “fix” this embarrassment, it might be a lot of unpleasant or distasteful things, but it wouldn’t be an ex post facto law.

The “upon further checking” phrase seems way too fishy to me. I think a discovery process along with a complete investigation is in order. Unfortunately, I imagine the SoS and the state Atty General are likely both major party elected officials and will do everything (or decline to do anything as the case may be) to make sure this isn’t resolved until after the election if at all.

What really burns me up about this is that Barr has to spend a great deal of his campaign money just to GET on the ballot in many states where the requirements are so restrictive it costs a third party many thousands of dollars collecting signatures. Then, if he has any money left over, he can get the word out to the general public.

He’s fighting an uphill battle but still polling 6% nationwide and double digits in some states.

Besides a possible electoral win in Texas due to this issue, he has a good chance of taking his home state of Georgia. If the LP wins two states’ electoral college votes in this election, 2012 should be a doozy… the battle is just beginning and the LP has the momentum.

Let’s see how the Dems battle a party with real principles. (yes, I think it will be the GOP that is displaced — thank Bush for that.)

I hope Barr wins this legal battle. If nothing else, it will get more coverage than anything else… all the substantive policy interviews he’s done. What I REALLY wish is that he is elected and finally the government can get the H.E. Double Hockey Sticks out of my wallet and bedroom and respect my Bill of Rights. You gotta love a politician who has served both the NRA & the ACLU.

RE: BubbaDave’s comment about people writing in, in Texas in order to be counted as a write-in candidate, the deadline is the same as for certified candidates. If you aren’t an “official” write-in candidate, people can write you in all they want — but the vote won’t count. If Barr is the only name on the ballot and nobody else qualified as a write-in (Obama and McCain did not) then Barr wins if he gets one vote.

In regards to the filing paper work the Libertarian Party did receive said paper work (http://www.bobbarr2008.com/files/dqcertification.pdf) both major Political Parties failed to make the deadline. Even with the hand written in writing on the Republican form of it being received on the 25th of Aug it was still blank of a Veep choice. Come on people lets roll with this thing.

Even if Perry decided to call a special session, couldn’t the Democratic legislators just leave the state for 8 weeks, denying the GOP a quorum, as they did for a while a few years ago during the redistricting battle?

Actually, the thing I find funny/typical about this goes back to the little publicized story about how Obama won his first Chicago campaign. And then add to that all the “rules are rules” stuff he kept spouting during the Florida/Michigan fiasco. If someone were to *conclusively* prove Obama missed the Texas deadline, how likely is it that he’d say, “Oh, well, being a totally honest politician who believes rules are rules and must be obeyed as I kept insisting during the primaries, then I will not be on the Texas ballot.” Yeah, right.

I live in Florida…our votes never count anyway. 2000, 2004, 2008 primary. It would be nice to see another state have to suffer the same fate as we did. Especially since it is a RED state. I love TX, but, HA!!!

Jules said what everybody should do on their own… “We need to hear everyoneâ€¦â€¦.” I hope one of these days people of the US switch off FOXnews, MSNBCnews, etc and take an active role. The mass media provides us with the news and updates of whoever pays, not what is true and real. How long ago did Iraq and Afghan fall off the front pages, yet our men are still dying. How many candidates are actually running for presidency? yet what are the only two names out there? we need to tell our frieds, family, and neighbors, its not about the lesser of two evils, http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php

There are two legally questionable issues in play. First, the original ballot-access law, which permits a party to be listed with its candidates only if it either gets a relatively high percentage of the vote (highly unlikely with corporate-sponsor media tied in with the two major corporate-sponsored political parties – the media pertends there are no other parties) OR the signatures route. The latter is restricted by laws passed by the two dominant parties that first worded the ballot-access law that signatures could be collected from registered voters only if they had not voted in another party’s primary. then held their primaries BEFORE the “window” of time the signatures were to be collected (40,000 verified voter signatures, minimum), meaning third parties must get signatures from the “leftover” voters, not the full and equal access.
Sounds like a ACLU class-action equal-justice lawsuit to me, but most ACLU offices are badly underfunded and understaffed in this state. The second issue is the one this thread of postings (“blog”) addresses: the judge’s rulng that (in agreement with most all of others familiar with the case) is clearly selective enforcement of a law. I am going to call the State of Texas Secretary of State toll-free number 800-252-8683 given to me by the Harris County Clerk’s office (who supplies ballot-listing information to be printed by the League of Women Voters, who had referred me to them).
Our party – the Green Party of Texas, tried to qualify via the signatures route, but failed to get the required number (the “leftover” voters issue), but we DID meet the deadline by presenting to the state our slate of ElectoralCollege delegates required for (just in case) the winning party to provide in the winner-take-all national election (NOT a “popular vote” total, we still cling to the antiquated Electoral College to “really” elect a President), and secondly, the actual signed petition-form by the candidates to be listed on the ballot as “Write-In” candidates (not listed under a political-party heading). We are open to cooperatively working with the Libertarian Party (as we did in 2004 exposing fraud via a recount-petition in Ohio and other states http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ that led to that state’s electoral college votes going to select Bush over Kerry who wimped out, conceding what was rightfully his) and all other “third” parties towards the objective of fair and non-partisan election laws in Texas. The candidates that DID make the deadline, Presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney http://votetruth08.com and VP-candidate Rosa Clemente http://RosaClemente.com have outstanding values and are not corporate-sponsored; no Green Party http://gp.org candidates are subject to bribery of lobbyists, corporate sponsors, or other non-voter entities!

Is there anyway I can confirm this through multiple sources? I got a few skeptics I would like to run this by, as it might help them make a choice. But secondly I hate these access laws, the amount of signatures you have to get for your candidate are insane compared to the actual effort it would be to just add them to the ballot. It’s made it impossible for me to get out to give it the old college try because I pretty much work every day of the week.